A year long, mostly Australian, but also containing Kiwi and Dutch troops, guerilla campaign against the Japanese on Timor ended in an Allied withdrawal.
While the Japanese prevailed in the action, the small Allied forces dedicated to it had tied up an entire Japanese division for an entire year, amounting to an Allied strategic victory. The ad hoc Allied unit was dubbed "Sparrow Force", reflecting its small size.
The Red Army outside of Leningrad attacked at Krasny Bor. All in all, the attack was not a Red Army success.
As an aside, the Spanish Blue Division was engaged by the Red Army in this battle and sustained a 70% casualty rate, partially resulting in its technical end, although it was replaced by the Blue Legion of Spanish volunteers which was subsequently disbanded in March 1944, as Franco read the tea leaves. Spanish prisoners captured in this action, which were not numerous, were not repatriated until 1954. Approximately 300 Spaniards were kept by the USSR until that time, in part because Span and the Soviet Union did not have diplomatic relations with each other.
The Blue Division was organized by Spain and contained a sizable contingent of soldiers who had received leave from the Spanish Army in order to join it, although it also contained many volunteers from the Spanish far right. For that reason, it was regarded as a Spanish formation by the Western Allies, who pressured Franco to withdraw it. Franco also received pressure from Spanish conservatives and the Catholic Church as well. The legion's connection would be less pronounced, and accordingly also more hardcore fascist, and it was eventually absorbed by the SS.
Hitler authorized the Blue Division Medal (Erinnerungsmedaille für die spanischen Freiwilligen im Kampf gegen den Bolschewismus) due to this action, which he personally had designed.
The Blue Division is interesting in quite a few ways, not the least of which is that figuring out Franco's motives in any one thing are always a bit difficult to do. Allowing the recruitment of a division amounted to aid to the Germans, in addition to that which was already being provided, without committing to the war as Italy had. It also meant that the most hardcore of the Spanish right was bleeding in the war, which a person has to suspect didn't hurt Franco's feelings, as he was never actually a Falangist himself.
The SS began recruiting Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen SS 13th Division. They did not respond to the call as enthusiastically as hoped, and while this unit remains popular amongst Wehrmacht fans, it isn't an example of a hugely successful SS foreign recruiting drive. Indeed, most such efforts by the SS were not terribly successful.
Classified as mountain infantry, the division did come to full strength and was used in anti-partisan warfare in Yugoslavia, where, like most such units, it gained a reputation for barbarity. About 10% of the division was made up of non-Muslim, principally Croatian, recruits, which Himmler had not desired to enlist. Officers of the unit were German or Yugoslavian Volkdeutsch.
Its area of operations were limited to Bosnia and its an example of how some of World War Two became, locally, a bigger war within a local war. Yugoslavia featured a particularly difficult to follow civil war throughout World War Two.
Up to a 1,000 survivors of this unit, and another one, went on to fight against the Israelis in Arab armies in the 1948-49 Arab Israeli War.
Vesta Stoudt, an ordinance factor worker, wrote to President Roosevelt about her idea for what would become duct tape.
Mohandas Gandi started a hunger strike while imprisoned in response to the British government's request that he condemn the violence of the Quit India Movement.
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